Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-02-02
SMALL SELFISHNESS.
ANNOYANCES WHICH DIMINISH THE
HAPPINESS OF A FAMILY.

First Reading of the Morning Paper.
Letting Ono Daughter Do Housework
While Another Remains Idle-List Of
Other SeIfishnesses.
One does not particularly care to have the
first reading of the morning paper, perhaps;
but when one never gets it until another per-
con, who has no more need or hurry than
ones self, has not only read it, but studied it
and committed the advertisements to men,
DRY, one possibly. through habit, expects
nothing else, but just as possibly feels slight
indignation at the way things are taken for
granted and ones self ignored. In the same
manner one does not, perhaps, expect the
most comfortable chair in the room as ones
own set property; but when another indi-
vidual and that always the same one, takes
it as if it was an heirloom, one is exceed
ingly unselfish ones self not to feel like max
ing that seat something less comfortable for
its sitter, although one might be restrained
by the knowledge that in such resort the sitter
would take the next most comfortable chair,
leaving others to take refuge where they
might, and be no better OFF than in tho begin
ming.
SO, moreover, one sees no especial occasion
Cor any one individual in the family to mo-
nopolize, whenever evening comes, the one
place that has the most light for either book
OF work or play, regardless who sits in the
dim corner, or who has shadow thrown
where the strength of the blaze should fall.
Il really cannot see anywhere else" says the
monopolizer, TRANQUILITY, as if in full explana-
ton, and as if the others eyes were of a diff
ferent lens altogether, innocent Of the fact
that no one else can see either, and that 1t
may not be positively important that the mo-
nopolizer should see at oil, since such i'm
portance depends very much on what you see
and how you look at it.
A selfishness as bad as any Of the other
forms occurs among those members Of a house
hold, where there is insufficient help, who do
not lift their fingers to assist in the lighter
work that in such instances falls on the family
itself, and who see others eking out the work
and filling the gaps with busters and dish
cloths and brooms without taking part-peoplS
who certainly are not to be looked at in the
light of promoters of that comfortable feeling
which springs from the sense of equal rights
and liberties to all. Why one daughter sits
with her novel while another scours the paint
is question that may well perplex the OBJ
viii and the other won't, although the one
who viii cannot, in spite Of herself, hinder
feeling of wrong done TO herself, and some
sensation of jealousy occasioned by the ap-
pearance of favoritism, which does not help
to make family jars impossible.
We have known of mothers who carried
the opposite idea so far that, able to keep 10
servants, as it CHANGED, they refused to let
ha ~ ba
reason why the Sons shclld not make the beds
they slept in, and if they wanted to wear
clothes requiring hard ironing, such as linen
and duck and nankeen; should not do the
ironing with their strong hands and muscles.
But those mothers were exceptions Ill q world
Of over INDUCED sons, yet we doubt not that
they made matters easy for their future
daughters-in-law, who without wishing their
husbands to 10 such labor Or to effeTinize
themselves in any similar way, yet reaped the
benefit of those husbands having been early
taught to consider the rights Of wives and
daughters and sisters.
But other selfishnesses as irritating as the
graspng of the best seat and best light and
best novel and first chance at book or news
paper can be met with at every turn in many
families; the selfishness, let US say, that, hav-
ing views on any questions conflicting with
the views of another, will give voice to those
views in season and out of season, and obtrude
them even to the injury of the feelings of
others, and if not early and late insisting
upon them, yet never failing TO read the
fragment from book or journal unpleaSantly
supporting them, and indulging in the audi
BILE sniff or sheer or outspoken innuendo, if
such a thing there be, on every occasion
where the indulgence is possible, a selfshness
that shows a consciousness of the value of no
ones views but ones own, and treats the IN
dividuality. of all others with contempt.
A similar selfishness is that which dis
regards engagements, which considers the
promise to be at home on certain day or a
fixed hour as of no weight beside the incon-
venience of keeping the engagement, and
who in this manner, disturbs the household
arrangements by making meals wait, while
servants grow impatient and unwilling, and
eyes grow tired with watching and ears
with listening, just as much as the almost
precisely opposite selfshness insists upon the
keeping of such promises and engagements,
even to the point of positive discomfort and
injury TO the other party, who perhaps
cannot keep them without such injury, and
could be excused by one with any unselfish
care One would find it hard to come to the
end of a statement of these small acts of
selfishneSS which infcSt the household, and
hurt it through burning sense of the in
justice done by them; and it is u question if,
with the present imperfection of human
nature, we shall ever quite escape them;
they are as countless as gnats in a storm, and
as vexatious.-Harper's Bazaar